The Cuban fever was very catching, and after the departure of this first band there was a regular epidemic of departure at the _Tocsin_. Carter and Simpkins turned up at the office one afternoon very much in earnest about it all and persuaded that a little British grit was what was needed in Cuba, "to keep things humming." Simpkins recalled his old army days and the valour he had several times displayed when under the influence of liquor. He waved an old belt appertaining to those times, and would, I believe, have sung something about the Union Jack and the beer of old England, had not his friend recalled him to a better sense of his duty as an Anarchist and Internationalist. It appeared that Carter had come into a small sum of money consequent on the death of an uncle, with which he was bent on paying their passage out to Cuba. "What is an Anarchist to do in this wretched country?" he asked. "I am tired of lying in bed waiting for the revolution. It's too slow coming." "Yah!" muttered Short under his breath to me, "the springs are out of order, and he finds it hard. That's about how much he cares for the revolution." After Carter and Simpkins had taken their leave of the staff of the _Tocsin_ I watched a very moving scene from the window, when they bade good Mrs. Wattles farewell. The good lady was very deeply affected, and with tears in her eyes she begged them to think again before betaking themselves to "them furrin' parts" where she had heard "the drink was something awful and not fit for a Christian stomach." She was only half reassured when told that rum came from somewhere in that direction. But Carter and Simpkins never reached Cuba. Some few minutes' walk from the office of the _Tocsin_, at the corner of Lysander Grove, stood an inviting house of call, the "Merry Mariners," where the valiant warriors dropped in on their way, to refresh themselves, perhaps in anticipation of the dreary prospect which Mrs. Wattles's words had opened before them. When several hours later Short returned from his accustomed evening stroll round the neighbourhood, he described with great relish the pitiable termination of their voyage. He had found Carter just sober enough to cart his incapacitated disciple home on a wheelbarrow, after which he painfully betook himself to his bed, there to bemoan the tardiness of the revolution, and the broken condition of the spring mattress. "And won't his guv'nor just give Simpkins a ragging when he gets home. He'll give him Cuba," gloated the unsympathetic printer.